The Prince of the Air and of Space!
by Jaime K. Hudson
Summary: While on a mission to inspect a small wormhole near an uninhabited planet, Captain Picard and crew find more than they bargained for...


"**The Prince of the Air… and Space"**

- By Jaime K. Hudson

Earth date: July 31, 1944. Location: the airspace off the southern coast of France. An allied photo-recon plane is struggling to stay in the air, its right engine letting out a steady stream of oily-black smoke. The pilot is coaxing as much extra power from the good left engine as he can, so as to buy enough time to find a suitable landing spot. As he glanced back, it seemed that the German fighter plane had long ago broken off, to return to its base. Just then, after sighting a possible place to land, a dark cloud-like emanation appeared just ahead of the aviator's plane. Without time to veer away, the flyer entered the strange-looking cloud… and vanished from Europe's war-torn skies.

Personal Log: Confidential (Code: XP38/F5/St."X" Planet Affair) Captain Picard was not ready to put an official star date to the past day's events… Not just yet….

The day had begun as a mission to the Beta Reggio star system, to check on an energy anomaly just leaving the vicinity of the outermost Class M type planet there.

"Mr. Data, what readings are you getting on the anomaly?" asked Picard, as he sipped his usual cup of Earl Gray tea.

"Captain, the parameters of this anomaly point to a possible wormhole, but one much smaller and less regular in its fluctuations than the one in the Delta Quadrant", replied the android, with a slightly astonished look on his golden-hued brow.

Picard noticed this right off, "Anything else, Data?"

"Yes, Sir, I am picking up a sizable metal object, possibly a craft of some sort, down on the surface of the planet. It is of no current type or class that my data banks recognize."

Data, his own curiosity piqued, magnified the sensors to get a clear image of the odd vehicle. It had a central pod or cabin, with two longitudinal booms to the sides, and with lateral flat surfaces connecting these to the pod. There were some rounded markings on these surfaces: concentric circles of blue, white and red, with the red being the outermost circle.

"To turn a phrase, Mr. Data, fascinating…"

After gathering an away team of Dr. Crusher, Lt. Aleta Philips, and two Security Officers, Captain Picard himself piloted one of the shuttles down to the planet, as Commander Riker, Data, and the rest of the Enterprise crew monitored the energy anomaly, still moving slowly away from the planet, toward another star system.

On landing, the Security men established that the nearby area was safe, only minor insects and herbivore-type animals among the lush plant life. Captain Picard motioned Dr. Crusher and Lt. Philips toward the strange metal craft poised on the nearby hard and smooth topsoil that the other craft had landed upon.

Inspecting the markings and overall condition of the metal craft, Picard pointed to the painted roundel on the side of the port boom. "Lt. Philips, what do you make of this?"

"Captain, it appears to be from the mid-20th Century, as is this aircraft, from the time of Earth's Second World War. The amount of all-around weathering to the vehicle's paint, suggests this craft was well travelled… I mean, it was used, or flown, extensively, as were most air vehicles of that conflict and era, Sir," answered the young historian.

"Captain, may I ask, why you've asked me on this away mission?" inquired a curious Beverly Crusher.

"Certainly, my good Doctor… Let me just say, at this point, call it a 'hunch', is all. Over the years, I've come to trust mine, and those of Commander Riker and Data, among several others of my crew. Lt. Philips, do you recognize the nationality of this craft?" Picard had another hunch, but did not vocalize it just yet…

Aleta glanced at her tricorder. "Sir, this craft's markings indicate it is most certainly…"

"French… Of France, which is my mother country", authoritatively stated a slightly gruff and very accented male voice, cutting off Lt. Philips' reply. A short and stout man, in khaki overalls, approached from a break in the dense plant growth beyond. The two Security men looked at each other, wondering how they missed detecting the apparently human male being, of about 45 or so years of age, give or take 5 years.

At this point, Captain Picard got a big lump in his throat… Picard had a third hunch, but it seamed very unlikely, in the extreme. "Sir, we detected your craft and sought to look for possible survivors. It pleases me immensely that you seem to be in good health. May I ask how you arrived here?" Picard did not wish to add culture shock to the airman's impossible situation, at this early meeting and time.

"My good fellow, as my English friends say, it is as much a mystery to myself how I came to be here, but I will tell you what I do know", replied the aviator.

Doctor Crusher gave the man a cursory medical inspection. Then, over a simple meal of some sandwiches and juice or coffee, the flyer told how he had been returning from one of his many photo-reconnaissance missions, when a Nazi plane had attacked his. With one engine smoking, he had tried to make a forced landing when a strange dark cloud had suddenly appeared ahead and engulfed him and his craft. When he came out the other side, he saw not the familiar hills and mountains of southern France, but the tropical like surroundings where he quickly found a flat and smooth opening in which to land his crippled plane.

"After I put out the one smoking engine, I found that it was actually a loose oil line on the right oil cooler that had caused all the smoke and not the gunfire from the enemy. A real 'Lucky Break!' as the Yanks in my squadron often exclaim…" quoted the Frenchman, who was delighted no end to find a fellow officer from his native land.

"That is an amazing adventure you have been through, and you may be surprised to learn it is a bit similar to one in a book I did read, as a young boy", said Picard. "Sir, have you ever seen and read the children's story book, 'The Little Prince', where a fine young man visits many small worlds, before landing on Earth?"

"Mon Ami, I do know of this book. Maybe not the author's best, but it had its points…" replied the veteran flyer, with a slight, sheepish grin.

"Excuse me Captain", said Lt. Philips, again glancing at her tricorder screen.

"Lieutenant, may I see that for a moment please…" as Picard took in a deep breath.

The pilot had been looking at the sharp, clean uniforms of his drop-in guests. He still had not seen the shuttlecraft, hidden in the deep jungle, but he had never seen such close fitting garments in all his years, except for a showgirl in Paris once, many years ago.

The image on Philips tricorder was of the writer and pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupery, also known simply as 'Saint Ex' to his friends and fellow aviators. Picard looked at the small screen and back at his cordial guest and back again several more times.

"Perhaps it is a good time to 'get our bearings sorted out', as the flyers of your era used to say, or so I've read" quoted Picard. After a brief explanation of how his own ship was 'out at sea', Picard slowly came around to describing how his uniform, and all else here and 'now' was not of the Frenchman's own place and time, and by a far, far margin.

"Yes, I have read a bit of the theories of Einstein, of 'Relativity' and such, and it was nice that you remembered my little storybook. You say it is still popular?" asked Saint Ex, with a slight smile on his lips.

"Yes, sir, it is still read, but books have changed so much since your time. Books on paper are quite rare, but my family did pass on a copy of it to me", replied Picard.

Picard showed the pilot the records on Philip's tricorder, of Saint Ex's plane going missing that fateful July of 1944, and of the discovery of a small bracelet off the coast of France at the end of the 20th Century… and of the plane wreckage a few years after that.

"It appears we have an impossible circumstance here, my dear Captain?" said the flyer.

"I am afraid so, my good sir…" Picard only knew of one true solution: to return the flyer and beloved author Saint-Exupery to his own proper place and time in history, but it did make him quite sad. You don't get to meet many like him, even in this century…

Picard soon had a plan, with the help of Riker and Data, still monitoring the anomaly. The fluctuations were soon calculated by Data and the Enterprise's computer, to a tolerable degree of accuracy. Picard would now take a big gamble, as in his beloved Poker, that things could and would be set to rights. At the very least, the legend of Saint Ex and his 'missing' plane would still continue on… And all his wonderful books, which the Frenchman seemed more concerned of than anything else, even his safe return to Earth.

Since the days of Kirk, the Federation's tractor beam technology had made huge leaps and bounds. A craft as fragile as the WW2 airplane could be easily managed now, and also a small atmosphere could even be contained briefly, with a targeted force field enclosure, about any object held in the tractor beam. After going over the plan carefully, Saint Ex nodded in agreement… He would return, whatever his fate, to his homeland again.

After some brief additional pleasantries had been exchanged, including a quick look for Saint Ex at the shuttlecraft and its controls, Picard and Dr. Crusher, Lt. Philips and the security detail were on their way back to the Enterprise.

"Mr. Data is everything ready?" inquired a slightly anxious Picard. It wasn't everyday that you try to mend a rip in history, no matter how large or small….

"Yes, sir, to a billion decimals, and all our best calculations", replied the android. Engineer Geordi LaForge would also be assisting in the handling of the tractor beam and the force 'life-field', as it was termed.

Below on the planet, Saint Ex had already double-checked all his aircraft and its instruments, warmed up both of the trusty Allison V-12 engines, and waited for his escort - and his awaited return. Better to sleep in my homeland, than to live on in some kind of limbo, he thought to himself. Just then, the Enterprise gently enclosed his plane in the life force-field. A moment later he felt a slight tug on his seat harness straps, as the great ship's tractor beams slowly lifted him skyward. "Well, here we go again, Antoine…"

Tracking the anomaly, with Saint Ex and his plane carefully in tow now, Picard wished he could say a final farewell to one of his boyhood heroes, but no communicator or other technology could go with the flyer that was not of his time.

"Captain, we are now at the best nominal distance from the anomaly, to insert the aircraft from the past. Ready to initiate, on your command…."

"Thank-You, Mr. Data. Make it so", replied Picard.

As the prince of the air, and briefly now of space as well, re-entered the strange energy cloud again, he could only marvel at the graceful outline of the star ship Enterprise, and of the beauty of the stars… So very, many, many beautiful stars… And of the worlds he had guessed at that, which he now knew were out there, in the vastness of all that beauty!

"Thank-You, Mon Ami… and Farewell!" were Saint Ex's last words….

"Excuse me Captain, but I have detected a small fluctuation back on the planet," reported Data, another quiz-a-microsecond look on his golden face.

"Yes, Data, what is it?"

On the planet, another 20th Century airplane, with yet another lost and famous occupant aboard, had also been captured by the energy anomaly long ago… and sent forward here and now. The markings and occupants of this aircraft were all American. When Picard and crew, from orbit, soon guessed at the identity of this second traveller of both time and space, he decided to send down Commander Riker with the away team. The one little extra item on this away mission though, was that Riker took along his trusty old 'Bone'. He just hoped that there would be a little time available, to play a few bars with the swinging bandleader, and fellow trombone player, Glenn Miller…

Saint-Exupery and his F-5/P-38 Lightning Recon Plane, Circa 1944


End file.
